http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PhhiKPHTWM
Out on 8/22! People are saying it approaches Uncharted 2 levels of greatness.
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Chloe has come a long way.
(https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3531/4012740247_792c2373c1.jpg)
(Non-story spoiler)
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A bracelet that emits a sound from the controller when treasure you can find is nearby. You can toggle it on/off in the options and it stays in your inventory when you replay older levels as well.
If you want to do everything on the map in this chapter, be sure to go to the question mark point first. It will help to reveal various locations you need to go to. I didn't do this until I already found half of them on my own, lol. Probably could have saved a bit of time if I had gone there first, but you really can do things on this level in any order, so that's cool.
And as expected, you go right back into a more linear level after finishing this. Makes me wonder if Chapter 4 by itself was originally the DLC they had planned for UC4.
Just finished the game and absolutely loved it. Was way more fun than UC4 and I agree with Rahx that the shorter game and pacing is what made it so good. It never felt like anything was dragging on and I kept looking forward to seeing what was going to happen next. The last few levels really delivered on the action, too. I don't know if this tops UC2 for me, but it's definitely the #2 Uncharted right behind it. An absolute blast to play.
Story spoiler:
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I didn't expect to see Sam Drake pop up but figured whoever was helping Asad had to be a familiar character. I was thinking Sully. He was a fun addition.
This game's pretty great and Chloe is a fantastic lead. I can't believe these visuals. Game looks like a goddamn painting.
I wish some of the filter options were available from the start. Cel-shading :drool
The one thing about the lack of anything supernatural here is that it makes one aspect of the story kind of a head scratcher:
(Story spoilers regarding the last few levels)
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What was the point of Asav looking for the tusk if he was just going to trade it for a bomb? He had a shitload of valuable artifacts already in his collection that is shown in the beginning of the game. Didn't exactly seem that hard up for the cash to buy some more weaponry.
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Sandbox area. At first I wasn't feeling it that much but once I got the hang of the navigation and did all the side puzzles, it was a gorgeous fun area to explore and have a blast with.
Problem being that everything after while good and gorgeous never really reaches those highs again outside one part
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The elephant ride.
One of the issues is that other than those parts, the rest doesn't feel particularly fresh and just feels like the same old same old Uncharted. For instance
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The final bit on the train while visually cool, was like "ok, already did this in Uncharted 2", sure it's a throwback to that, but it doesn't feel like anything in the finale is fresh and new. We've done the jumping from jeeps before, we've done the fist fights (which are pretty terrible, I preferred U4's fencing final boss to this punching final boss). And while it was all kinda visually impressive, after they got captured and got the tusk the rest of the game just felt a bit boring for me because the mystery of the ancient civilization was over, and all that was left was traditional climbing, shooting, helicopter fights and the final train sequence which was all been there, done that. I enjoyed it but also kinda tuned out after they left the ruins.
Also while as I mentioned the character writing is great and snappy and funny and develops the cast nicely, the story beats were pretty mediocre imo. The main characters would constantly get captured out of nowhere whenever just because the plot makes it so rather than actually feeling natural events leading to it. They'd always escape just as nonsensically. And when that happens multiple times it just felt really contrived. It's weird because I think TLoU plot is quite good but a lot of Uncharted games have weak stories and story beats especially with antagonists even if Uncharted games have snappy dialogue. Hmmm...
And I died so much in the last 25-30% of the game, it was a bit frustrating. I suck at Uncharted combat and the infinitely respawning enemies parts annoy the crap out of me. I prefer Uncharted when it's adventuring and puzzle solving. Even the stealth is kinda fun. But the non-stealth combat waves part just ugh, every Uncharted game from 3 onwards seems to have a handful of bullshit combat bits. LL doesn't really do a single thing to improve those bits unfortunately.
I'm really glad this wasn't just some DLC add-on. It feels like a full game, the only thing keeping it from feeling like Uncharted 1 quality full game is the variety (would've loved to have a large city section). Feels closer to a full game like Golden Abyss where it's smaller scale. Feeling like a full game is pretty satisfying and it's nice getting another Uncharted. It looks incredible, has good dialogue, the gameplay is generally fun (combat ymmv) and the one big section in the middle is incredible and one of the best gaming experiences this year. I'd give it like a B+
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If they ever did another Uncharted game, I'd really enjoy a sandbox Uncharted with multiple sandbox maps (city sandbox maps, jungle, desert, etc...) like the Western Ghats. Definitely feels like an idea that could be expanded, although Uncharted without ND, no idea who could pull it off.
Judging from your posts you play Uncharted more for the snappy dialog and sentimental moments than you do the game. Which is fine since the game does both very well. I see them as pop corn videogames, like good action/adventure flicks so I judge them by the set pieces and how those are executed including everything else. But those set pieces are the biggest reason for why I play the games, so to speak.
What? I basically said Uncharted games have bad stories :lol Yeah U4/LL/TLoU has good dialogue but uh, no I do not play these games for their writing.
(spoilers below for LL)
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I play Uncharted for Tomb Raider adventuring, platforming, exploring, puzzle solving mixed with some combat and set pieces. Out of all of those I think the combat is the weakest link in the series still after 4 games. The set pieces are cool, but none of the ones in LL impressed me? Like LL felt budget in the set pieces compared to the crazy stuff that goes down in U2/U3/U4. I mean I thought the best looking and most exciting set piece was the opening escape in the city at the end of the intro chapter. The final chapter just didn't do it for me because fighting your way through a train has been done so much it wasn't really exciting to me. The only part I thought was cool was the running from the falling train bit at the very end but it was like 15 seconds.